


Obligation

by akisazame



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Gen, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-02-14
Updated: 2009-02-14
Packaged: 2018-02-24 13:25:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,553
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2583020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akisazame/pseuds/akisazame
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was always tough being the new kid in town, especially in a town as small as Inaba, but things like Valentine's Day just made it all so much worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Obligation

Yosuke leaned forward onto his desk, resting his head on his folded arms and waiting for class to begin. It was always tough being the new kid in town, especially in a town as small as Inaba, but things like Valentine's Day just made it all so much worse. He'd been working at Junes for the past week, watching girls come up to the register with baskets full of chocolate, or standing dumbfounded in the candy aisle trying to choose exactly which confection to buy for the boy she liked most. There was always a pattern to it: a pile of giri-choco, sometimes a tomo-choco or two for good measure, and one carefully chosen honmei-choco. As Yosuke's hours for the week started to pile up, he'd begun concocting elaborate fantasies in his head, imagining that the prettier girls were actually buying chocolate for _him_ , which naturally evolved into a daydream about coming to class on Monday and being greeted by a huge pile of candy on his desk.

Reality was not so kind, of course. He was just the new kid in town, and the Junes kid on top of it. As he'd suspected, there wasn't a single chocolate in his shoe locker, nor was there anything waiting for him on his desk. It didn't help that there seemed to be far more girls in his class than he remembered, whispering and giggling and not-so-discreetly pointing at boys, all boys who were most definitely not him. He rolled his head around slightly so he was face down on his arms now, just so that he didn't have to look at all this stupid crap anymore. It was just a stupid holiday anyway. Might as well call it Make Money For The Chocolate Companies Day, or Watch Girls Be Totally Stupid Day.

The day passed with little fanfare. If it weren't for the giggling girls and the guys with proud looks on their faces, it would have seemed like any other day to Yosuke, complete with having to work at Junes yet again after school let out. To be honest, he was kind of grateful for that; mindlessly stocking the produce section would keep him from focusing on other things, such as his complete inability to get honmei-choco from _anyone_. Yeah, sure, Chie and Yukiko-san had given him some giri-choco, but even that was kind of depressing; wasn't the point of that stuff to give it to every guy you knew? What the hell was wrong with all the other girls in his class, then? Did they really hate him that much? He was relieved when class was dismissed, and he headed for the door and out without even looking at anyone.

Yosuke Hanamura Is A Complete Goddamn Failure Day.

When he arrived at Junes, he was honestly surprised to see Saki Konishi in the break room, putting on her apron as though it were just any other day. He'd thought for sure that she would have taken Valentine's Day off in favor of going on a date with some guy. A girl like her had to have guys falling all over her, and she definitely had to have some guy that she liked best, someone to give a honmei-choco to. Some incredibly awesome guy. The perfect guy. Not Yosuke, basically.

"H-hey, Saki-senpai," he said, trying his hardest to sound casual. He didn't like the weird flip-flopping in his stomach every time he saw her, didn't like the way his heart threatened to jump up into his throat and choke him. "Don't have a date tonight?" _Oh, right, real fucking smooth, Yosuke._

Saki looked up, slightly startled, but she smiled easily. "Oh, hey Hana-chan. No, I don't have a date tonight. Always thought this was kind of a dumb holiday anyway. More money for the chocolate companies, right?" She looked away then, pulling out a compact and checking her hair. Yosuke couldn't see her face anymore, except for a tiny patch of her cheek reflected in the mirror. "And more money for Junes, too."

Oblivious to the implication of her last sentence, Yosuke just laughed. "I was just thinking the same thing! Man, some of the tabs I rung up last week were crazy." He glanced at the clock and noticed that there was still a few minutes left before he had to head out to the floor; his stomach did that weird flip-flop again, and he couldn't decide if he was happy or mortified that he would get to spend a little more time alone with Saki-senpai. He never knew what to say around her, and always ended up saying the dumbest things possible as a result.

Luckily or unluckily, Saki ended the conversation early. "I gotta go do something real quick before my shift starts, okay? See you later, Hana-chan." She breezed by him without so much as another word, her arm lightly brushing his as she passed, just enough to send an awkward shiver through him. He was tempted to turn around and watch her leave, but instead he just stood frozen to the spot, mouth slightly agape. Always a second too slow on the uptake, that was Yosuke in a nutshell.

He was a little relieved that the store wasn't as busy as it had been, because it meant less work and less having to watch impassively as girls bought boxes upon boxes of chocolate for not-him. On the other hand, less work meant more time to reflect on just how stupid his life was. Despite his best efforts, he kept replaying scenes of the day at school in his head, of girls shyly approaching the boys they liked with a nicely wrapped box of chocolate, all blushes and giggles. Inevitably, his overactive imagination replaced the boy with himself, and the girl with Saki-senpai. It was hard to picture Saki-senpai as anything other than perfectly composed, much less as a giggling wreck, but somehow his brain managed to make the transformation, and he kept having to forcibly push the image out of his head with thoughts of more mundane things like homework or video games.

It was a stock night, so it was nearly midnight by the time he got done with everything he needed to do. He'd expected that everyone else would have gone home by the time he finished -- manager's son always got stuck with the stupid crap no one else wanted to do -- so he was surprised to see Saki-senpai sitting at the table in the break room when he went in to retrieve his school bag. "S-saki-senpai," he stammered, thrown off by her presence. "I thought you got off a while ago."

She looked up from the book she'd been reading, her eyes tired. "Oh, Hana-chan. Uh, yeah, I got off about an hour ago. I just, well..." She reached down to pick something up from under her chair, then held it out to him. "Well, here."

He tried to keep his eyes from widening and his mouth from falling open, but it was a futile effort. Sure, the tiny box of chocolate she was holding out for him was just a giri-choco, and one of the cheaper ones the store sold at that. Probably something that had been discounted today in order to clear out all the holiday stock. She'd probably bought one for every guy on the staff, for that matter. But still-- "Thanks, Saki-senpai," Yosuke murmured, his voice cracking on the last syllable.

"It's no big deal. Happy Valentine's Day." Then she smiled, one of those easy smiles that made Yosuke's heart do that throat-jumping thing, and she stood up and picked up her school bag. "See ya around."

\---

Yosuke was getting tired of Teddie constantly barging into his room, picking up his stuff and looking at it like it was all incredibly interesting. Why couldn't the dumb bear get his own damn stuff to look at? "Oooh, oooh, Yosuke! What's this?!"

He only spared the most cursory of glances at the blond-haired boy, just to figure out what he was messing with now. "That's the speakers for my stereo, Teddie," he answered in a monotone, attempting to concentrate on his math homework. "I'd really rather you didn't--"

Yosuke couldn't even get the whole sentence out before Teddie had whooshed across the room to pick up something else. "Oooh, Yosuke, _chocolate!!_ Teddie loves chocolate!! Can we share it?"

The math book clattered to the floor as Yosuke leapt out of his desk chair and snatched the tiny box of chocolate out of Teddie's hands. "No, Teddie! Just... no." He looked at the box, dusty and slightly battered, but still unopened. There was a lump in his throat, but this time it wasn't his heart. His voice was tight when he spoke again. "Please don't touch random stuff without asking, okay?"

The brilliant smile that usually adorned Teddie's face dropped away, replaced with a look of confusion. "O-okay, Yosuke. Sorry." He bit his lip, then turned around and left the room, closing the door behind him.

Yosuke just stood there for a minute, looking at the box of chocolates in his hand, trying to hold back the tears that threatened to roll down his face. He'd been wrong all along, really. Yosuke Hanamura Is A Complete Goddamn Failure Day was actually celebrated in April.


End file.
